Former President Donald Trump spoke at the NRA Annual Meeting. He got their endorsement and, unsurprisingly, said some nice things about gun rights.
I mean, if you want an endorsement from a gun rights group, you should probably say you favor the right to keep and bear arms. That’s just kind of how it works. I mean, it’s not like Thomas Massie or Matt Gaetz is going to get an endorsement from Giffords.
But it seems some people really don’t understand that’s how it works.
One such person is the mayor of Birmingham, Alabama.
Trump’s praise of the National Rifle Association at a weekend event in Texas was “sickening,” Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said during a Sunday interview that also touched on gun violence in the city.
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“When you hear Trump praising the NRA what goes through your mind?” Sharpton asked.
Woodfin said it was a “tough week” related to gun violence in Birmingham and he’s glad the two children survived.
As far as Trump’s comments, Woodfin said “It’s sickening. I think as a country related to gun violence, not just in urban cores but mass shootings as well … we’re the only country where this is an issue. You would think as the nation of the free world we would have solved this issue by now.”
“But it takes more than the President of the United States. We need men in women in Congress, in both houses, to have the fortitude to take on the NRA, to simply say ‘at what cost?’
Yes, because the world revolves around Birmingham, Alabama.
Homicides have been trending downward since the 2020 spike all across the nation, including in places like Alabama. Birmingham is something of an outlier in that they increased for a couple of years following the pandemic, but even then they started going back down.
While it’s too early to make pronouncements on 2024, the early indicators are that despite a rough week, they’re heading downward for this year as well.
But yes, Trump should allow Birmingham’s issues to dictate his entire campaign strategy.
Of course, Woodfin took office in 2017 and the city apparently saw an immediate rise in homicides which hasn’t come down to 2016 figures yet. But sure, the problem is the right to keep and bear arms.
The truth of the matter is that if Alabama suddenly went the way of California, Birmingham would still have problems. Hell, if the US went the way of the UK, Birmingham would still have problems. That’s because their issues have nothing at all to do with firearms. They never have.
All across the nation, the homicide rate is plummeting. This drop coincides with the Bruen decision and, in many states, the passage and implementation of constitutional carry. If guns were the issue, the rate should be doing the exact opposite of what’s happening.
So Trump talking favorably about gun rights isn’t sickening.
No, what’s sickening are anti-gun politicians who see trampling our rights as an easy way to get votes while trying to convince people it’s in their own best interest to give up those rights. What’s sickening about Trump expressing his support of gun rights is that there’s a need for people to express their support before being elected to public office.
That’s what’s sickening.
The world doesn’t revolve around Birmingham, Mayor Woodfin. Learn to deal with it.
